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Dean Martha Denney Announces Launch of Center for Career and Professional Advising

Dean Martha Denney

Published on:

04/07/13

In a move designed to better integrate career planning with the larger academic experience, Haverford is reorganizing and expanding its career development effort through the creation of The Center for Career and Professional Advising.

In a move designed to better integrate career planning with the larger academic experience, Haverford is reorganizing and expanding its career development effort through the creation of The Center for Career and Professional Advising.

Situated in the Deans Office, the Center will assist students with what Dean Martha Denney describes as career development“in the largest senseâ€”from internships to advising for professional school, to alumni networking, to job-seeking skills development. The Center will ensure that students start planning for life after college as they begin to think about major courses of study."

The creation of the CCPA is the result of a two-year self-study conducted by Haverford and Bryn Mawr. It concluded that each could best meet the needs of students and graduates by designing and administering a program tailored to the colleges' unique qualities. As a result, the 28-year-old Bi-Co Career Development Office (CDO) will be superseded by two independent offices.

"The end of CDO doesn't mean the end of career development â€˜cooperation'," notes Dean Denney. "Students and alums from both schools will continue to have access to Bi-Co networking and shared internships and employment opportunities."

The Center will be directed by a dean who, like all deans, will engage in traditional academic advising. This change underscores the move toward grounding career and professional guidance within the larger process of academic guidance overall. The search for this new dean of Career and Professional Advising is in progress, with a hire expected this summer and rollout of services to begin with the fall semester.

Integration with the academic life will place special focus on the sophomore year, and the challenges and opportunities associated with that critical juncture will become the core responsibility for Liza Bernard, current director of the Bi-Co CDO. Amy Feifer will become an assistant dean and director of career services, with Jennifer Barr continuing as pre-law advisor and Laura Reiter managing employer and institutional partnerships. Emmy Robinson remains administrative assistant.

"Here at Haverford, we like to think of our mission as an opportunity to educate â€˜the whole person'," says Dean Denney. "Our reorganization of career development reflects that philosophy by thinking in terms of the global Haverford experience, and the way that academics connect with co-curricular and post-curricular activity. If part of our mission is helping students find themselves, the CCPA will help them engage where their interests can take them. This is about putting the liberal arts to work."